Do telomeres have a higher plasticity than thought? Results from the German Chronic Kidney Disease (GCKD) study as a high-risk population

Raschenberger J, Kollerits B, Titze S, Koettgen A, Bärthlein B, Ekici AB, Forer L, Schoenherr S, Weissensteiner H, Haun M, Wanner C, Eckardt KU, Kronenberg F (2015)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2015

Journal

Experimental Gerontology Elsevier

Book Volume: 72

Pages Range: 162-6

DOI: 10.1016/j.exger.2015.09.019

Abstract

Telomere length is considered as a biological marker for aging. It is expected that telomeres shorten with age and with conditions associated with oxidative stress and inflammation. Both are present in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) who have a very high cardiovascular risk. We investigated whether CKD duration is associated with relative telomere length (RTL) in 4802 patients from the German Chronic Kidney Disease (GCKD) study. We measured RTL in each sample in quadruplicates using a quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). We observed a U-shaped association of RTL with CKD duration: the longest RTL was found in those 339 patients who reported the shortest disease duration (<6months) and shorter RTL in 2108 patients with duration between 6months and less than 5years. Most importantly, those 2331 patients who reported a CKD duration of 5years and more had significantly longer RTL compared to those with intermediate CKD duration (6months to less than 5years): mean 0.954, 95%CI 0.946-0.961 versus 0.937, 95%CI 0.929-0.944, p=0.002). Due to the cross-sectional nature of the study these surprising results have to be considered with caution and as hypothesis-generating. Whether the longer RTL in patients with long-lasting disease is caused by an activation of telomerase to counteract the shortening of RTL due to oxidative stress and inflammation or whether they are caused by a survival bias needs to be investigated in longitudinal studies. Our data are in support of a higher plasticity of shortening and elongations of RTL as until recently anticipated.

Authors with CRIS profile

Barbara Bärthlein Lehrstuhl für Medizinische Informatik Arif Bülent Ekici Institute of Human Genetics Kai-Uwe Eckardt Department of Medicine 4 – Nephrology and Hypertension

Involved external institutions

Medizinische Universität Innsbruck AT Austria (AT) Universitätsklinikum Freiburg DE Germany (DE) Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Raschenberger, J., Kollerits, B., Titze, S., Koettgen, A., Bärthlein, B., Ekici, A.B.,... Kronenberg, F. (2015). Do telomeres have a higher plasticity than thought? Results from the German Chronic Kidney Disease (GCKD) study as a high-risk population. Experimental Gerontology, 72, 162-6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exger.2015.09.019

MLA:

Raschenberger, Julia, et al. "Do telomeres have a higher plasticity than thought? Results from the German Chronic Kidney Disease (GCKD) study as a high-risk population." Experimental Gerontology 72 (2015): 162-6.

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